We are different now.

Remember those two crazy kids who set out to have a good time and nothing else? They were both sort of surprised by the way things unfolded, I think, in a really good way. 

Remember the fun they had learning to play house? New floors, Memorial Day parties, peach trees that grew and birch trees that got sawed off, not-a-tornado siding, boat port, Kati's bedroom upstairs/no downstairs/no upstairs, ringing in New Year's Eve 2000, pretend sleeping on late harvest nights and so much more. 

Remember the early disaster of the construction business and the climb out, promising we were in this together, no matter what? It was followed by the triumph of the new, glorious house and the years of sunshine that followed there. 

Remember the trucking business failure, the cancer, the job change and the shift from sunshine to partly cloudy? Both too afraid to blink first, we wandered wounded, scared and fragile into a dark and dangerous place, neither one of us knowing how to ask for what we needed ... or trust that it would be there if we did. 

All of those people are gone now. Two new people stand here, full of experiences, beliefs, reservations, gut instincts, hopes, fears and memories. Two people who share so much, but are in some ways total strangers again. 

Strangers except for the powerful cord that ties them together. Strangers except for the love. 

There has always been love. 

Love among the tears. Love amid the vulnerability. Love surrounding the pain. 

If there was no love, this would have ended a long time ago. 

It is not an easy thing. 

I do not really understand where you are. I know what you said a couple of weeks ago. And what you said in Wyoming. And what you said in August before this all started. And what you said over the past four years. And what you've been saying for the past 20. 

All of those things conflict and overlap and contradict and twist and change constantly.

I don't know if you know where you are. I don't know if you think you don't have a choice or if you don't want to make one. Or, maybe you do know and you're just not able to tell me. 

I'm asking you to keep your heart open long enough to find honesty. Real, true honesty. It's so hard. 

Honesty will set us both free for whatever comes next.  



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